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INAUGURAL ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 

BOARD OF TRUSTEES 

OF 

HAMPDEN SIDNEY COLLEGE 

January lOtli, 1S49, 

BY L. W. GREEN, D. D. 

PRE S IDE NT. 



PRINTED BY JOHNSTON AND STOCKTON— MARKET STREET— PITTSBURGH. 

1 S49. 






ADDRE S S 



On this very day, two hundred years ago, Charles, the first 
Stuart that mounted the English throne, was arraigned before the 
high Court of Justice, assembled in Westminster Hall, as a "Ty- 
rant, a Traitor and a Murderer," in the name, and by the authority 
of the Commons of England, and all the good people of the realm: a 
scene which even Hume, the apologist, and worshipper of arbitrary 
power, is forced to acknowledge, "corresponded to the greatest con- 
ception that is suggested in the annals of human-kind — the delegates 
of a great people, sitting in judgment on their supreme magistrate, 
and trying him for his misgovernment and breach of trust." 

The names of Hampden and of Sidney are inseparably connected 
with the fate of Charles, and have been rendered forever memorable 
by their participation in that prolonged and eventful conflict, which 
was waged by the emancipated intelligence and piety of England, 
against a despotic Prince — an ambitious and fanatic clergy — a de- 
generate aristocracy and an obsequious Court; which moving on, 
ahke amidst disaster and success, with ever deeper feeling, and clearer 
consciousness of its own inward principles, and ultimate results, at 
last united all the scattered elements of truth and freedom in one 
embodied phalanx against their combined antagonists, and consecrated 
for all coming generations, amidst the blood of heroes and of martyrs, 
that glorious principle, the basis of all American and all English 
freedom, the death-knell of all tyranny, civil and ecclesiastic, that 
"under God — the origin of all legitimate authority, is the will of 

THE PEOPLE." 

About twelve years before, on the 1st of May, 1637, eight vessels 
were seen at anchor in the Thames, just ready to embark with their 
freight of emigrants for North America. They belonged to that 
class of men, already numerous, to whom "the far greater part of 
serious thought, and manhood in all England," whether within or 



without the limits of the established church, were raj3idly approaching; 
the purity of whose morals rebuked the corruptions of the Court; 
the simplicity of their doctrines and their worship rejected alike the 
solemn mummeries of a i antiquated superstition, and the dazzling 
splendor of a gorgeous and imposing ritual; while the republican 
freedom of their opinions on government and religion, assailed at 
once the high prerogative of Charles, and the divine right of Laud, 
and arrayed against them the Mitre and the Crown, in all the fierce- 
ness of royal wrath, and all the fury of fanatical persecution. This 
double antagonism against the government and the church, was but 
the two-fold operation of the same great principle of Freedom; the 
double front which she presented against the foes thatbeleagured her 
on either side, she demanded ""both at once, and each to secure the 
other — Evangelical Doctrine and Civil Liberty.''^ 

At length wearied with the prolonged and hopeless struggle; 
abandoned by the high aristocracy, their natural protectors; oppressed 
by the King who was sworn to defend them; persecuted bv the cler- 
gy, their professed spiritual guides; chased from their places of pub- 
lic worship; hunted into their most secluded retreats; dragged before 
the star-chamber, and Court of High Commission, with the mangled 
countenances of their best men, maimed at the pillory, and bleeding 
there before them; and their boldest defenders, and most honored 
ministers immured in the dungeon or the Tower; they sought, in 
voluntary exile, a refuge from their woes, and left the graves of their 
fathers, with their wives and litde ones, to find in this distant land 
an altar and a temple unstained by blood, and unpolluted by idols, 
amidst the grandeur of primeval forests, and beneath the overspread- 
ing canopy of Heaven. There is nothing in all human history 
which can be compared, for touching pathos and high sublimity, with 
the spectacle exhibited on an occasion such as this. Impartial his- 
tory has awaked at last, to vindicate the character of these extraordi- 
nary men, and hastened to lay the tribute of her fervid and admiring 
homage at their feet. The stale slanders of Hume are rapidly falling 
into contemptuous oblivion, before the more liberal spirit and keener 
insight of a Bancroft, and the profounder philosophy of a Guizot; 
while M'Cauley, Forster and Carlisle, have exhausted all the stores 
of human language, and the resources of human thought, to portray 
the stern and lofty heroism of their unconquerable nature; the depth, 
the tenderness, the solemn and holy grandeur of those unearthly 



hopes, from which, alone, this heroism sprang. The vessels were 
too hw for the muhitudes of emigrants; and as those who remained 
stood on the margin of the waters, and those who departed were 
about to sail, they bowed together there — those persecuted men — and 
with many prayers and tears, commended each other to the guardian- 
ship of God; praying that He who heaves the billows and guides the 
whirlwind, and holds the ocean in the hollow of His hand, would 
bear His own exiled children safely amidst the stormy elements, and 
stay the fury of the oppressor against those that were left behind. 

Amongst the crowd of emigrants just ready to embark on this oc- 
casion, were two extraordinary men, both members of the English 
Parliament, closely united by the ties of blood, and still more closely 
by a mutual friendship; on the one side affectionate and tender, on 
the other, profoundly reverential; one already signalized by his bold 
and perilous advocacy of popular rights, and soon to seal his testi- 
mony with his blood; and one, the terrible glory of whose name was 
destined to eclipse the lustre of England's proudest hereditary rulers, 
and the lofty energy of whose wise and vigorous administration, per- 
vading every branch of the public service, curbing the fierce passions 
of contending parties, and wielding all alike for the general good; 
triumphant on every element, and over every foe, has rendered the 
era of England's commonwealth, the proudest in all her annals, for 
the splendor of her achievements by sea and land, the progress of her 
commerce, and the wide extent of her influence over the destiny of 
the civihzed world. These two men were John Hampden and his 
cousin Oliver Cromwell. 

Such were the emigrants, and such their leaders, who lay that day 
at anchor in the Thames, just ready to depart, when arrested by an 
order from the Privy Council, forbidding them to sail. They re- 
turned in sadness to their homes. In sadness; yet, as we may well 
conceive, not without indignation too. They had sued for liberty to 
worship God. Their suit had been rejected. They had sought to 
fly; and even this last hope of the oppressed, this lowest right of the 
most abject bondsman, this appointed punishment for the convicted 
fellon — EXPATRIATION — is too great a privilege for England's no- 
blest freemen! You know the result. The prayer they had offered 
to the God of love and mercy, was. heard by the God of justice and 
of vengeance, and strength was granted them from on high, for 
sterner conflicts, and safety amidst stormier elements; and when soon 



6 

after, all England blazed forth into universal conflagration, and shouts 
of execration and defiance arose from all the land, deep, long and 
loud, against the traitor and the tyrant; when in the battle-shock 
England's proudest nobility bit the dust, and her trained veterans 
led on by her choicest chivalry, were swept like chaff before the 
whirlwind, hewn down by sword and scimetar, transfixed by pike 
and bayonet, trodden down, whole battalions in the lightning charge, 
and crushed beneath the horses hoofs, the voice of stern authority 
and high command, that was heard above the storm of battle, the 
hand which pointed the path to danger and to victory, and led the 
way, were the same that had been folded in meek devotion, and 
raised in humble prayer on board the little vessels that swung there 
at their moorino-s in the Thames. 

o 

Another century had passed away. The Stuart dynasty had been 
dethroned — -restored — dethroned again; the oppressed of England 
and of Europe had crowded by myriads to this land of hope and 
promise, in the West; the English Puritan, the Scottish Cove- 
nanter, the Irish Presbyterian, the Huguenot Refugee; and from 
remotest North, to extremest South — from Boston Harbor and Ply- 
mouth Rock to Georgia, had planted their Colonies and diffused their 
principles of piety and freedom; when another struggle came, based 
on the same principles, springing from the same essential causes, and 
waged between the same antagonists. The oppression which had 
driven them from home, pursued them to the wilderness — the 
double oppression, of Royal tyranny and Priestly pride. Taxed at the 
will of a foreign King and Parliament; tythed for the support of an 
indolent and worthless Clergy, mainly of foreign origin, and younger 
sons, or humble retainers of the very aristocracy whom their fathers 
had fought and conquered a century before; their most gifted minis- 
ters, the luminaries of their age, harassed with ignoble jealousy and 
petty spite, by parish priests and county magistrates, and circuit 
judges learned in the doctrines of right divine. All men, who 
had marked the course of English history, or studied the principles 
of human action, foresaw, that whatever else might be endured, this 
could not last. There was a man well known to many of you here, 
the friend and companion of your fathers, named first of your Board 
of Trustees in the early Charter of your College, and worthy of 
this honorable position, as the compeer of Hampden and of Sidney, 
who had sat with mingled awe, and wonder and delight; beneath the 




ministry of one of these extraordinary men; and as he sat there, 
thrilled, subdued, electrified, in alternate astonishment and trans- 
port, kindled his eagle eye, and plumed his eagle pinion, and fired his 
towering imagination beneath the broad effulgence of that majestic 
intellect, which made even Patrick Henry, the pupil, the admirer 
and unconscious imitator of Samuel Davis. Tutored in such a 
school, we need not wonder that the earliest efforts of his genius were 
directed against that clerical d^ndbination he had witnessed only to 
abhor; and when in after years, he spoke amidst cries of ^'Treason! 
Treason!" those words of fire, which caused the ears of those who 
heard to tingle, till all men woke up at once, as from a trance, and 
catching up the sound, sent it onward, and onward still, in louder and 
yet louder peals of reverberating thunder. Whence did he draw 
both argument and illustration? Was it not from that heroic era and 
that noble cause, for which Hampden gloriously shed his blood upon 
the battle-field, and Sidney calmly laid his head upon the block? 
"Caesar had his Brutus — Charles the first his Cromwell — 
and George the third might profit by their example!" 

No wonder then, if amidst the struggles and sufferings of that event- 
ful era, when patriots and christian statesmen looked, and looked 
almost in vain, to find some fitting place for the safe education of their 
children, all eyes were spontaneously directed towards the rising 
Institution, where the names and principles of these illustrious 
patriots were embalmed together, and freedom and learning harmo- 
niously blended and hallowed both, by the benign influence of reli- 
gion. 

It was amidst the closing struggles of the Revolution, that the 
x\cademy of Hampden Sidney, was chartered as "Hampden Sidney 
College." The Names of Patrick Henry and James Madison stand 
conspicuous amongst the first Trustees, and in the Charter are these 
deeply significant and memorable words, which will at once explain 
and justify this lengthened historical detail. "In order to preserve 
in the minds of the students, that sacred love and attachment which 
they should ever bear to the Principles of the present glorious Revo- 
lution, no Professor shall be elected, unless the uniform tenor of his 
conduct manifests to the world, his sincere affection for the Liberty 
and Independence of the United States of America." 

Well and ably did the Institution, at this early period of her his- 
tory, meet the expectations and justify the confidence of her friends. 



-io 



8 

Througli a long series of years in continuous succession, her annals 
are adorned with the names of men, of whose consecrated genius and 
enlightened piety, the State of their birth or their adoption, and the 
Nation itself, might well be proud. The names of the Smiths, and 
Alexander, and Hoge, and Speece, and Lacy, and Rice, beam upon 
us in rapid and brilliant succession, from her records; and many of 
our most gifted patriots and statesmen in the Senate Chamber, and 
even the Chief Executive of the Nation received their education 
within her walls. I am not ashamed to acknowledge, gentlemen, 
that these proud historic recollections; this galaxy of brilliant geni- 
us; the glory that beams upon her from the past, as well as the bright- 
ening hopes that dawn upon us from the future, have emboldened 
me to unite my feeble efforts along with yours in the noble enterprise 
to resuscitate this venerable institution; to place her prosperity upon 
a permanent foundation; to enlarge her libraries; to increase her 
apparatus, already valuable and extensive; to secure the ablest in- 
structors,j^nd retain them when secured; and thus to raise her by our 
combined exertions, to that elevated position which shall meet the 
just expectations of her present patrons, and realize the cherished 
hopes of her early founders. That this can be done, with the con- 
tinued blessing of Providence upon united and persevering efforts, 
the success of your recent enterprise conclusively attests. That it 
WILL be done, that it must be done, that it shall be done, is the 
assurance distinctly expressed and definitely understood, which has 
engaged me in your service. Less than this has never entered the 
conception of any enhghtened friend of the College: Less than this 
will never meet the emergencies of our day, the enlarged demands 
of an enlightened public, or your own sanguine expectations: Less 
than this, it w^ere alike unworthy of you to suggest, or me for a mo- 
ment to consider: Less than this, were, mdeed, to invoke the glory 
of your fathers to dignify the mockery of a farce. 

And, allow me on this occasion of our first public interview, to 
suggest how important, in every enterprise, is the favorable crisis. 
The spring-tide of success, is the season of peril too. The bloom 
of early hope encircles the germ of promise. It is only the heat of 
summer which gilds the ripened fruit, and the toil of harvest which 
in:athers in the golden store. To relax your efforts now, is at once 
to forfeit your pledges, and frustrate your hopes; not only to jeopard 
the future, but to nullify the pa^t. • 



9 

The greatest of ancient generals, who turned back the tide of 
Roman victory in the zenith of her glory, and with inferior numbers 
met and routed her best appointed armies, commanded by her most 
celebrated leaders — lost all the fruits of hard-won victories, incredi- 
ble endurance, and almost superhuman genius, by a single night's 
inglorious repose. 

He has scaled the Appenines — he has mounted the Alps. In 
vain does nature pile high her everlasting barriers before him, and 
hostile tribes of fierce barbarians hang upon his rear — he has 
mounted the rugged precipice — with vinegar he melts the solid 
rock, through hosts of barbaric warriors he hews his onward way, 

"A frame of adamant — a soul of fire, 
No dangers awe him, no labors tire;" 

Amidst the accumulated snows of centuries — where the foot of the 
wild goat never trod, where the gray avalanche creaks and totters 
on his granite throne, where only is heard the scream of the Alpine 
eagle, as startled from his eyrie above the clouds, he circles around 
the mountain summits of eternal snows — there hath he stood. 
And now far beneath and wide around, in one magnificent and glo- 
rious panorama, lie the broad fields and fertile valleys of Italy, her 
vine-clad hills, her groves of palm and olive, her lakes all sparkling 
in the sun! 

As the avalanche sweeps from its mountain home resistless on the 
plain below, thus rapid, terrible, resistless, from their Alpine heights, 
pour down in thronged battalions, his toil-hardened soldiery — Rome's 
hardy veterans and youthful chivalry — plebeian, noble, knight, mer- 
cenary ally, freeborn citizen — lie in promiscuous carnage. The 
Lake of Thrasymene is filled with blood, the field of Cannae is piled 
high with heaps of Rome's dead nobiUty. Behind him, all Italy is 
his. Before him, the gates of Rome stand open to receive the vic- 
tor; her walls with none to guard them, and her heroic mothers wail 
their subjugated country and their slaughtered sons. One more hold 
strolce, and the whole course of history is altered! The fate of 
Rome and Man hangs trembling in the balance! 

He has paused — midway in his career of glory — paused. The 
balance of the world's destiny trembles — has descended. The 
wines of Capua have avenged the slaughter of Cannae, and Rome is 

2 



10 

mistress of the world once more; and he whose very name made 
proudest senators grow pale, is a fugitive and exile, ignoble suppli- 
ant, at a barbaric court, and sinks, despairing suicide, into a dis- 
honored grave. 

For us to pause, and look around, and felicitate ourselves on what 
has been accompHshed, would be indeed to turn, as by some spell of 
malignant magic, the crown of laurel into a poppy wreath, and the 
trumpet notes of encouragement and approbation, which hail on 
every side your incipient success, into a soothing lullaby, fit for the 
nursery — not the academic hall; for children — not for men. 

I do but utter the sentiments which glow in every bosom through 
this whole assembly, and will be echoed with warm enthusiasm by 
all our friends abroad, when I say that now is the time for action; 
now when fresh scores of students are crowding to your halls; when 
the funds of your endowment are pouring spontaneously into your 
treasury; and the confidence of a generous community cheers you 
at every step of your progress, — now is the time for renovated vigor, 
for ardent, united, extended cooperation, that this child of the Revo- 
lution, first-born of our asserted Independence, may vindicate her 
high paternity, and re-assume her original preeminence. 

In entering upon the duties of that office to which your kindness 
hath invited me, I am not insensible to the magnitude of the inter- 
ests involved, the high and solemn responsibilities incurred, the sa- 
cred trust confided. When viewed in all its bearings, in all the wide 
extent of its large and manifold relations, to the individual himself, 
to his family, to society at large, to the church and state, to the pre- 
sent and future, to the whole race of man, to time with all its inter- 
ests, and eternity with all its retributions — it may w^ell be doubted 
whether human being ever could assume higher responsibilities than 
the teacher; or human faculties in their happiest development and 
rarest combination, ever were fully commensurate to their incom- 
mensurable grandeur. It is no trivial or easy task, rightly to edu- 
cate a nation's youth; to pour the light of knowledge on the mind; 
to impress the principles of virtue on the heart; to discipline the 
various powers in due proportion, and touch with skilful hand the 
springs of thought, of sentiment and action; to inspire a generous 
love of truth and knowledge; to curb the native tendencies to evil; 
wake up the moral nature to assert its lost supremacy; to arouse and 
guide aright all those stupendous powers, of such terrific energy for 



11 

evil, such genial potency for good, which slumber often unnoticed 
and undeveloped in the bosom of the young immortal; to fan those 
living fires within the soul whose genial light and life and warmth, 
may bless a nation or illuminate age, or pour their streaming radi- 
ance down through coming centuries, or with volcanic energy may 
shake the earth, heave up the deep foundations of the social order, 
dash down the strongest batdements of the public welfare, burst all 
the bonds that bind society together, and over the blasted ruin pour 
its own dark lava, torrent of crime, of lust and blood, — to move 
amidst such stupendous elements as these, and touch and mould 
and wield and guide and fashion and direct, might task an angel's 
energies, and awe an angel's heart. When lord Elliot, dying in the 
tower, would leave behind him the most touching assurance of his 
confidence and friendship, he entrusted to the tutelage of Hampden 
his two noble boys, to be orphans soon. When England's Com- 
mons would wring from England's perjured monarch some perma- 
nent security for the "ancient laws and liberties of the realm," they 
demanded that the Prince his son should be committed to Hamp- 
den's instruction; by him to be imbued with all liberal knowledge, 
and formed to lofty purposes, and moulded to the model of a true 
king amongst men. When Plato had travelled far by sea and land, 
to visit foreign states, study their constitutions, laws and manners, 
their philosophy, their history, their science, their religion, their 
early traditions, and more recent speculations — he sought to serve 
his country and his kind; not as he first proposed, at the bar, in the 
senate or the popular assembly, in the Agora or the Areopagus — 
but amidst the shade of Academus, uttering in earnest eloquence to 
his youthful countrymen the lessons of a lofty Morals and profound 
Philosophy — lord of the wide domain of thought — legislator of 
an intellectual republic — guide of the guides of men. The Greeks 
astonished, transported, exclaimed that if Jupiter should condescend 
to speak their language, he would use the Greek of Plato. And 
when Jehovah did condescend indeed to hold intercourse with men, 
and God himself was manifested in the flesh, he came as the light of 
the world, as the prophet and the teacher, the guardian and guide of 
his people. Let us therefore forget it as soon as possible, (for it is 
unworthy of serious refutation) — let it sink into peaceful oblivion — 
that vulgar prejudice shall we call it? or devout imagination, which 
would dignify the gospel ministry by divorcing it from learning, and 
purify the fountains of learning by banishing the ministry of recon- 



12 

ciliation; and would fondly persuade us that he degrades the dig- 
nity and the sanctity of his high vocation, who consecrates the best 
energies of early manhood, or the ripened experience and mellowed 
wisdom of a serene and vigorous old age, to the service of his gene- 
ration, as the friend and companion and instructor and guide of our 
young countrymen. 

The great design of education, is to exercise, to discipline, to 
invigorate, and thus to develope the Ma?i, the wliole Man, Intellectual, 
Moral, Social; the faculties of the understanding, the affections of the 
heart, the purposes of the will, the impulses that lead to action, and 
that mysterious and sovereign power, the balance-wheel of this 
strange and complicated machinery within us, which is neither Rea- 
son, nor Imagination, nor Passion, nor Will, nor Sense, nor all com- 
bined; but different from them all, and superior to them all, better 
than them all, and above them all; the appointed arbiter and guide of 
human life; God's high Vicegerent within us, to control, direct, to 
subordinate, and thus to harmonize them all. We wish to rear no 
Intellectual Monsters with prodigiotcs protuberances and bulky bumps, 
the forced and forward growth of hot-bed culture, concentrating and 
absorbing all the vital energies into some favorite faculty, and dwarf- 
ing all the rest; no sickly sentimentalists; no visionary dreamers; no 
logical machines to grind out syllogisms wherewithal; no misty tran- 
scend entalists, with subtle metaphysic, skillful in splitting hairs twixt 
north and north west side; no pedantic Rabbis, "learned, pious and 
dull," circling in everlasting gyrations around the circumference of a 
sheva; no men of one idea, (whatever that may be) impenetrable to 
all beside, hermetically sealed against the air that is breathed by the 
men of their generation, the vitrefaction of a man, through whom the 
great stream of the world's living electricity can never flow. This 
is not to educate the faculties, but to pervert, to distort, to mutilate. 
It is felony; felony at the common law and by the statutes at large of 
the great commonwealth of letters. We want men, w^ith large round- 
about Anglo-Saxon sense, healthy, well-proportioned men, adapted 
to all the emergencies, all the relations, duties and offices of common 
life, with all the faculties expanded, in harmonious exercise and 
symmetrical proportion, and conscience enthroned high above them, 
all, in undisputed and imperishable supremacy. 

To accomplish this principal design of education, and collaterally 
attain all its inferior, and subordinate results, there could not, perhaps, 
be devised a more effective system, than that which has come down 



13 

to us, already matured by the wisdom of ages, and tested by the 
experience of millions; which has not been manufactured by the inge- 
nuity of visionary theorists, but has grown like the great system of 
American and English Liberty and Law, from the particular neces- 
sities of men, and been recommended by its exquisite adaptation to 
their wants: which like every other system, not of mechanical con- 
trivance but of vital growth, contains within itself the principle of 
indefinite expansion, and spontaneously adapts itself to the varying 
circumstances of human society, and the progressive advancement of 
human knowledge. There is not, for instance, a single faculty of the 
human mind, which is not exercised, disciplined and invigorated, by 
the first sUtdy of the College course, the study of Language. The 
memory, the ima,i]:ination, the judgment, the taste, above all, that 
keen and subtle logic which pervades all human speech, that power 
of rapid though unconscious generalization the first developed in the 
infant mind, that native and profound philosophy which characterizes 
all human language as the FiiisT-BORN of human THOuaHT, and 
bearing the clearest and deepest impress of its origin. 

The first study of the infant mind is language; through the whole 
of future life this is the instrument which the man employs, the 
vehicle of his thoughts and feelings, and the medium through which 
he receives and communicates his knowledge, his wishes, his enjoy- 
ments. The great business of human life, in all its departments; in 
the intercourse of society; the transaction of public or private busi- 
ness; in the decision of the greatest questions that involve the interests 
or the rights of men, at the Bar, in the Pulpit, on the Bench, and 
often in the Legislative Hall, is to interpret language; and the life 
of individuals, the welfare of nations, and even the destinies of eter- 
nity, depend upon the right performance of this duty. 

It maybe truly said that the man who has studied a single language 
thoroughly, under the guidance of a skillful and philosophic teacher, 
has done more to cultivate all the various faculties of the mind, and 
prepare for their appropriate exercise on any other subject, than could 
possibly be accomplished by the study of any other single branch 
of human knowledge. When this earliest, easiest, and most impor- 
tant part of mental discipline has been accomplished, the mind is 
ready for the severer discipline, the more exact definitions, abstruse 
inquiries, the prolonged and difficult trains of reasoning which belong 
to mathematical science, teaching distinctness and accuracy of thought 



14 

and expression, intense concentration of attention, and banishing all 
those illusions of imagination, prejudice or passion, which usually 
mingle with and distort our judgments. Without this antecedent 
discipline, he would be unable to master any of the higher problems 
in Natural Philosophy, Astronomy, or Chemistry itself, or even to 
comprehend the methods by which they are resolved; but his previous 
study of Language and Mathematics, has prepared him to describe 
the phenomena, to investigate the laws, to calculate the motions, the 
distances and all the various relations of matter, through all its provin- 
ces, whether in the minuter particles or mightier masses, in the struc- 
ture of a crystal, or the revolutions of suns and systems; thus passing 
in natural, easy progession, step by step, (not one of which could be 
omitted,) from the simplest employment of childhood, to those lofty 
speculations which exercised and immortahzed the genius of a 
Newton. 

Thus skilled in the use of language, the great instrument of thought; 
thus trained to distinctness and accuracy of thought itself; habituated 
to observe, to analyze, to compare, to arrange, to classify the phenom- 
ena of external nature, the diligent student is now prepared to enter 
upon that sublimest of all earthly studies; for which all other sciences 
are but the preparation; in which they all find their unity, towards 
which they all converge, as to a common centre, and in which all 
their higher problems, whether in Language, in Mathematics, or in 
Natural Science, are ultimately merged; the study of Man himself; 
of rational, accountable, immortal Man; with his high spiritual nature, 
his large intellectual powers, his lofty moral faculties, his immortal 
existence and everlasting destiny. Here he is moving amidst new 
elements; the processes are more subtle; the phenomena more fleet- 
ing; the objects of investigation more sublime and more mysterious. 
The powers of the higher calculus fail him here; the Telescope and 
the Microscope, the Retort and the Crucible are applied in vain. 
The mind is its own domain; at once the subject and the object; the 
instrument and the agent, in all its investigations. The fleeting phe- 
nomena arise and pass rapidly away; just flit over the delicate 
instrument and are gone; the very attempt to grasp and fix, annihi- 
lates them; and after all his painful analysis, the result of repeated 
experiments, there remains to reward his scrutiny, not the living 
reality he wished to examine, but the impalpable residuum in the 
crucible of memory. The very language which he would employ 



15 

in these refined investigations, being formed for other and coarser 
subjects, he finds too rude an instrument for this minute anatomy; 
and the deHcate ligaments of thought and feehng, are severed by the 
rough edge of the operator's knife. Yet these subtle processes 
mingle with all our reasonings at the Bar, on the Bench, in the 
Senate, in the chair of Medicine and Theology, disposing of property 
and character, of health and fife, of time and eternity. The truth is, 
every man has his metaphysic, however crude and erroneous; every 
woman, every child his theory of Man and Nature; of his suscepti- 
bilities and powers, of his relations and duties, his origin and destiny, 
and of that stupendous scene, in the midst of which he is placed, not 
as a passive spectator, to gaze with alternate wonder and admiration, 
but as himself a part of the very mystery that awes him, and in the 
mighty drama of existence, all around, himself an interested actor. 
He who would excel in any department of human effort, therefore, 
must study mental philosophy; not superficially, hastily, crudely, 
but diHgently, thoroughly, profoundly. 

But there are wider, loftier, more important relations than any we 
have yet considered,* relations that link him with the great universe 
o^ sjnritual and moral beings, and the lavjs and movements and awards 
of a high moral administration; and as in the world of matter, the 
eye discerns the objects of external vision; and in the "world of mind 
the intellect perceives the objects of thought and feeling; even so 
does he find within him a faculty and a law which correspond with 
the laws of this moral administration, and recognize the existence 
and authority of the Supreme and Universal Legislator. 

Henceforth each act, each event, each relation of human life, each 
faculty of the human soul assumes a new aspect, is clothed with 
new grandeur, beneath the light of this high relationship. Duty, 
obligation, right, holiness, law, are now written upon all human things; 
and as the laws which operate at the surface of the earth, and regu- 
late the motions of an atom, extend to the remotest quarters of the 
universe, preside over its sublimest revolutions, and bind its most 
distant parts together, as in a bond of universal harmony — even so 
does he now perceive that there is a law of moral sympathy which 
binds the moral universe together, and links him, frail mortal as he 
is, with all that is grandest in the destinies, and holiest in the sym- 
pathies of superhuman beings. He is no longer the child of dust, 
but the heir of immortality; made of the elements of which angels and 



16 

archangels are formed, a member of the same universal family, sub- 
ject of the same government, and partaker of the same exalted des- 
tiny. The anatomist may demonstrate the various parts of his 
pl)ysical system. The physiologist may explain the several func- 
tious of each, and the mutual relation and reciprocal dependence of 
them all. The chemist may analyze them into their component 
elements. But there is an ethereal element which the knife of the 
anatomist, the chemist's test, the speculations of the physiologist, can 
never reach, and there is an ethereal science. To study the 
laws, to ascertain the boundaries, to investigate the facts of this lofty 
science, and the duties resulting from this high relationship, is the 
sublimest exercise of the faculties of man; and to omit this exalted 
science in a course of liberal education, would be to exclude from 
the education of man, the cultivation of the only faculties which dis- 
tinguish him preeminently from the brute creation. 

Thus have we passed from the early pratdings of infancy, through 
the demonstrations of the higher mathematics, the varied phenomena 
of matter, in all their wide extent, the sublimities of mind, and the high 
mysteries of our moral nature — till we stand upon the boundaries 
which separate the visible from the invisible world, and man communes 
with angels, and "has moments like their brightest." But in the 
universe of matter, there are all around us depths which loe cannot 
fathom, and heights that we cannot scale, and regions of grandeur and 
glory which the unaided eye can never penetrate; and at the utmost 
verge of those sublime discoveries which the telescope has made, 
even there the energies of Almighty Power and the riches of Al- 
mighty Goodness have not been exhausted; but over the boundaries 
of that immeasurable empire, we dimly behold, stretching far away 
beyond the reach of telescope or the grasp of imagination, nebulae 
of unfathomable depth and inimitable extent, which in a higher state 
of being, or with superior instruments, even here, shall brighten into 
worlds of unutterable glory. 

To a mind that has once become famihar with the vastness of the 
external universe, and with those conceptions of infinitude in num- 
ber and quantity which form the great element of our modern 
science, the transition is immediate, spontaneous, unhesitating, (by 
the irresistible force of those analogies w^hich form the basis of all 
philosophical discovery, and though different in kind, are scarcely 
less infallible than mathematical demonstration itself,) to a corres- 



J7 

pondent grandeur in the universe of spirit. Here too the Telescope 
of Revelation comes to aid our feeble vision, and reveals new worlds 
of wonder to our astonished gaze. Yet on the farthest limits of all 
that Revelation has discovered, as we stand upon the Pisgah's sum- 
mit, and gaze over upon the land of promise, we feel that we have 
but reached the vestibule that leads us to the Palace of the "King 
Eternal and Invisible;" and man, astonished, awed, bewildered, as 
children startled at the revelations of the telescope and microscope, 
starts back from the wondrous spectacle and asks, "Are these illu- 
sions of the imagination, or glorious realities?" This leads to the 
"Evidences of Christianity" as a branch of collegiate education. 
And all his previous studies have prepared him for this investigation. 
All his philosophy has heen a philosophy o^ facts and their apjrro- 
piate evidence. He has learned no "High, Priori" way of vision- 
ary speculation. The Inductive Philosophy has banished at length 
from every department of legitimate inquiry, the audacious dreams 
of the Schoolmen. There are no prototypes of all possible truth 
stored up in his understanding, and thence evolved by the intense 
contemplation of himself. He stands in the great temple of nature, 
not to dictate, but to learn; not to construct a theory of his own, 
and then distort the facts to support it. But facts learned from his 
own observation or the testimony of other men; these facts variously 
combined, classified, arranged, form the basis, and the whole super- 
structure of his knowledge. The question never can be, "Is it new, 
strange, wonderful; is it reconcilable with my philosophy?" "But 
is it true?" He demands the fact, and bids away from him the 
visionary speculation. He asks the evidence. He examines, 
weighs, scrutinizes, and rejects or receives, as the evidence may 
preponderate. 

The Gospel is a Religion of Facts. The question as to its truth, 
ig a questio7i of evidence a,nd not of speculation. To a mind thus 
soberly disciplined, it is idle to use the authority of experience, 
against these well attested facts. He has no experience of the laws 
by ivhich loorlds are made, or loorlds redeemed. Yet even the objec- 
tors tell him that the little world in which we live, bears on its sur- 
face, and in its bosom, indubitable evidence that the Invisible and 
Eternal one, has come forth again and again from amidst the Invisi- 
bilities of his Eternity to repair the ruin of our globe; to build it up 
again in new beauty, and people it afresh with inhabitants adapted 
3 



18 

to its renovated state; and he asks, why is it incredible that he should 
come forth once more to repair the moral desolation — 

"Nee Deus intersit," 



With these juster views of the Physical Phenomena, which he has 
now attained, it will appear childish folly to object that "a miracle is 
a violation or suspension of the Laws of Nature." The existence 
and operation of a superior power do by no means annihilate or sus- 
pend the inferior, else the existence of a creator must necessarily 
destroy the universe which he has made; and all the various powers 
of nature could only exist by their mutual annihilation. All nature 
is an aggregate of powers or of agencies, which continually cooperate 
with, or counteract and modify each other. Yet the attraction of the 
magnet does not annihilate the law of gravitation; nor does the law of 
gravitation violate, or for a moment suspend the laws of motion; or 
the superior laws of animal life supersede, at all, the laws of vege- 
table organization; or the energies of man's spiritual being, annihilate 
the laws of his corporeal nature. Nor does the discovery of some 
new energy in nature, or of some new result, however unsuspected 
or astounding, overthrow its established harmony, or nullify the fun- 
damental principles of human belief, or suspend the authority of that 
common testimony on which all are ahke admitted. It is received 
at once amongst the known powers in operation all around us; nor is 
its existence or its agency at all supposed to violate the order of 
nature, or suspend the operation of one of her laws. It is a new 
catise, and from the very nature of causation, supposes a new effect. 
Now precisely such a cause, universally admitted, and such an effect 
as the natural result of its agency, and nothing more than these, are 
asserted in the miracles of the Bible. That cause is the Will of Om- 
nipotence, and that effect is the consummation of his purpose; whether 
in the healing of the sick, the resurrection of the dead, or the creation 
of a universe. The greatest of all conceivable miracles then, is con- 
tinually before his eyes, even the universe which God has made; and 
he who denies the possibility of a miracle, and yet acknowledges God 
as his creator, is, in his own person a Uving instance of the very 
miracle whose possibility he denies. 

The question then, as to the miracles of the Bible, like any other 
question concerning the operation of a cause whose existence and 



19 

adequacy to the asserted effect are both admitted, resolves itself into 
a simple investigation of the evidence. With the laws of human 
nature he is already well acquainted from daily experience, and his 
antecedent investigation of the human mind in all the variety of its 
complicated associations and emotions, and standing on the sure basis 
of his own individual consciousness, and the experience of all around, 
he has only to inquire whether, in the whole range of human interests 
and passions, any adequate explanation can be found for the combined 
and deliberate propagation of a wilful and blasphemous falsehood, 
not only without any intelligible motive, but against every motive that 
was ever known or can even be conceived to influence the conduct 
of mankind. 

Such is the external evidence of Christianity. It is the fact, and 
the Evidence against the Speculation. It is the Inductive Philoso- 
phy against the Hypothesis. It is the ascertained gravitation of New- 
ton, against the imaginary whirlpools of Des Cartes. It reveals a 
cause that has not been robbed of its efficiency; an agent that has not 
been stripped of his agency; a series of co-existing causes that do 
not necessarily annihilate each other; and a Great First Cause that 
can exist without absorbing all subordinate causes into his own mys- 
terious Being, and operate without merging all inferior agency in his 
own inscrutable omnipotence. 

The study of the internal evidences of Christianity is, again, only 
the application of those principles of Philosophical Investigation 
which he has already learned. Any ingenious hypothesis, by over- 
looking a portion of the real facts, and assuming others that are 
imaginary, may attain the appearance of specious plausibility. But 
the infallible characteristic of a true theory is, that it harmonizes all 
the facts, denies none that are real, assumes none that are imaginary, 
meets all the conditions of the question, and answers them all. Now 
Christianity may be called a theory of God, of man, and of the 
world; of the character and attributes of God, of man's present con- 
dition and capabihties and future destiny, and of the world as the 
work of God and the temporary abode of man. How does it meet 
the conditions of such a theory? Does it degrade or mutilate any of 
the attributes of God? Does it sacrifice his justice to his mercy; the 
sacredness and sublimity of immutable and eternal right to some 
utilitarian scheme of mere enjoyment? Is it adapted to Man as he is, 
or calculated for some imaginary state of ideal excellence? Does it 



20 

slur any of the facts, avoid any of the difficulties? Or, does it fairly 
meet the case in all its stern reality, without apology and without 
exaggeration? Is it adapted to all men, and in all conditions, the 
most enlightened and the most ignorant, in sickness and in health, 
in prosperity and adversity, in joy and sorrow, in infancy, childhood, 
youth, manhood and old age? Are its teachings so subUme that the 
loftiest intellect cannot wholly grasp them; and yet so simple in their 
unparalleled sublimity that the little prattler at your side will suspend 
his childish sports, and listen with wrapt attention and in breathless 
silence, to the wonderful recital? Are they under all 'possible circum- 
stances the true philosophij of human life, giving humility to the high, 
serene dignity to the low, consolation to the afflicted, pardon to the 
guilty, courage in time of danger, patience in time of suffering and 
wrong, piety without moroseness, ardor without enthusiasms, supe- 
riority to the world without mysticism and without misanthropy, and 
for all the higher principles of our immortal nature offering at once 
the noblest incentives and the loftiest theatre, moulding us beneath 
the high motives and for the sublime purposes of eternity? 

Again as a theory of God and man, of time and eternity, and of 
the universe itself, it sweeps a stupendous circle of thought; stretches 
over the whole wide field of human knowledge; touches upon all the 
varied phenomena of the intellectual, moral and physical creation; 
embraces in historical narrative and prophetical delineation the whole 
history of the world as GocTs worlds and of the human race as one 
IN ORIGIN AND IN DESTINY, through a period of more than three 
thousand years, from the earliest Patriarchal ages to the Roman Em- 
perors; containing the minutest descriptions of manners and customs, 
institutions civil, religious and domestic; distinct assertions as well 
as indirect allusions to changes in the policy of governments, in the 
divisions of their provinces, titles of their officers, names of their cities; 
in fine, a series of works extending over fifteen hundred years, com- 
prising sixty-six different treatises, by fifty different individuals, and 
in three several languages; written in every variety of style, with eve- 
ry diversity of intellect, and upon almost every conceivable subject, 
Poetical, Historical, Biographical, Prophetical, Epistolary, Didactic; 
and thus presenting an almost infinitude of points, where it can be 
confronted with the matured results of human investigation in every 
department of inquiry, in History, Antiquities, Morals, Philosophy, 
physical and mental. Philology, Astronomy; from Coins, Medals, 
Inscriptions, Pillars, Sepulchres, Pyramids. 



21 

How certain, and hoiv searching is this test; and hov7 infallibhj 2\\ 
human pretensions to universal knowledge fall before it, as the dis- 
coveries of each successive generation pour their light upon the 
opinions of their immediate predecessors, (though it lies in the very 
nature of the case,) has seldom been duly appreciated even by intel- 
ligent inquirers. It is known, indeed, that there is not a false reli- 
gion in the w^orld which would not vanish instantaneously before the 
light of Natural Science; and the Telescope and Microscope alone 
would suffice to overthrow all the Ancient Religions of farther Asia. 
But is it considered duly? that there is not one of our church fathers, 
not one of the more celebrated writers of the middle ages, and coming 
down nearer to our own times, scarcely a distinguished author, Infidel 
or Christian, during the last century (not excepting Newton himself,) 
who in touching on these subjects has not betrayed an ignorance, 
which to us would appear ludicrously absurd. A single sentence 
from Plato or Aristotle, from Seneca or Cicero, from Lactantius or 
Augustine, from Voltaire or BufFon, or even from Newton himself, 
if found in our Bibles, would, as has been truly said, prove the igno- 
rance of the writer, and of course discredit his inspiration. Yet the 
first of these writers lived Nine Hundred years before Pythagoras 
and Thales, the last was contemporary with Seneca and Pliny, and 
though educated each in the absurd philosophy of their day, and 
touching on the very subjects on which all men have erred, neither 
has ever uttered or suggested an opinion contrary to any of the facts, 
which the lapse of twenty-three hundred years has revealed. That 
each of these fifty writers should be free from those contradictions, in 
which all others have been involved — that each new discovery should 
only serve to throw new light upon their meaning, and add new evi- 
dence to their credibility — is, perhaps, the completest specimen that 
the whole range of human learning has yet afforded of the truth of a 
theory, established by millions of independent harmonies, and mount- 
ing up in their combined and multiple result to incalculable billions 
of probabilities in its favor, with absolutely nothing to the contrary. 

Having thus passed step by step, in ever ascending progression, 
from the lowest elements of human knowledge to the subhmest truths 
w^hich the mind of created intelligence is permitted to contemplate, 
the successful student, as he pauses to look back from the elevation 
he has reached, is astonished to find what new order and beauty and 
harmony and glory, overspread the dark and agitated scene of human 
affairs when reviewed in the lisjht of divine revelation; as in nature 



22 

the hill-side and the valley, the mountain and the ocean, burst from 
the bosom of the night, not by any brightness of their own, but in the 
reflected radiance of the skies. He has looked wide abroad, and 
beheld everywhere and in all things the omnipresent majesty of law, 
in the revolutions of worlds and the movements of atoms, in the wild 
sweep of the hurricane, and the tempest of human passions. Is there 
then no law of human history? no controlling principle? no presiding 
purpose? To seize the scattered facts, to arrange, to classify according 
to their mutual relations, to gather them around their great central 
truth, to harmonize and combine them into a system, to find the 
thread that shall guide us through the trackless labyrinth; this is 
the design of a true Philosophy of History — a science in its infancy 
as yet — deformed by many a visionary speculation, perverted to 
many an unholy purpose, yet destined in its progress to vindicate its 
origin, and, prove the greatest, the most comprehensive, and most 
fruitful of all human studies. It is preeminently a Christian Science. 
To an ancient Heathen, the very conception had been impossible. 
Its elementary idea is exclusively, intensely Christian. The unity 
of the human race, unity in origin, in nature, in destiny; its seminal 
principle is already there in the old Hebrew Prophets; its earlier 
germs are found in the ancient fathers; its subsequent development, 
though in imperfect and fragmentary forms, in successive Christian 
Philosophers, until at last the magnificent conception has forced its 
way into the universal mind, and Infidel Philosophy, bewildered by 
a thought too large for its comprehension, too serenely solemn for its 
frivolous impiety, and confounding the laws of matter and of mind, 
has altered the name without changing the character of the blind di- 
vinity they worship, and substituting "necessity'' for "chance," (both 
equally remote from intelligent design,) has sought to banish "the 
God" from History, because all History is the manifestation of his 
presence, and guided by his '■Haws.'''' To every independent think- 
er henceforth, a Philosophy of History must be an indispensable 
necessity. 

We have thus briefly, rapidly, hastily, imperfectly explained our 
design, and the method and means of its accomplishment. Yet, 
though these various departments of study have been brought succes- 
sively before your view, let it not be supposed that they are in such 
a sense successive; that the one terminates of course with the com- 
mencement of the other; the study of Language yielding to that of 
Mathematics, and both to Natural Science, and all to the study of the 



23 

higher Philosophy, Intellectual, Moral, Political or Social. On the 
contrary, though commencing at different periods, they are mutually 
so arranged that they move on harmoniously together, shedding their 
blended radiance along the student's pathway, developing at every 
step, in due proportion, the various faculties, until at the termination 
of his career, the character we have aimed to form, is the result of 
their combined and contemporaneous influence; thus seeking to 
realize that profound and beautiful conception of Lord Bacon, so 
happily expanded by Bollingbroke, in his "Idea of a Patriot King:" 
*'In forming the human character we must not proceed as a statuary 
does in forming a statue, who works sometimes on the face, sometimes 
on the limbs, sometimes on the folds of the drapery; but we must 
proceed, and it is in our power to proceed as nature does in forming 
a flower or any other of her productions; she throws out altogether 
and at once the whole system of Being, and the rudiments of all the 
parts. Rudimenta partium omnium simul parit, et producit." 

That any system of education, however, may be effective for the 
accomplishment of its object, it must be — First, accurate and tho- 
rough — Second, comprehensive. 

1st. — It must be accurate and thorough. The most limited ac- 
quirements, if they be only real^ are more valuable than superficial 
learning, however varied and extensive; as the smallest coin of solid 
metal is more valuable for all the substantial purposes of life, than 
the widest expanse of superficial splendor. Nay, the illustration does 
not at all meet the emergencies of the case. For gold leaf, however 
attenuated, is still the precious metal; whereas superficial learning 
gives no real knowledge. It is only showy ignorance; ignorance 
without humility and without honesty. "It is hard," says Dr. Frank- 
lin, "for an empty purse to stand straight." It is harder still for an 
empty mind to stand erect in honesty and independence. It is the 
blighting influence of superficial education upon all the loftier ele- 
ments of human character in future life, which constitutes its bitter- 
est curse, invisible, impalpable, unsuspected, yet all pervading as it 
is insidious. All true energy and independence are connected with 
clearness of intellectual vision. What a man sees distinctly, he 
approaches directly and grasps firmly. Decision of charcter, energy 
of will, firmness of principles, and distinctness of apprehension, are 
inseparable correlatives. Yet inaccurate education is the deliberate 
training of the mind, and moulding of the character, in directly the 
opposite direction; to vague, indefinite, shadowy, inadequate concep- 



24 

tions; to hesitating, oscillating, half-conjectural conclusions, reached 
without thorough investigation, and ready to be abandoned in con- 
scious ignorance and innbecility, at the first assault of ingenious 
sophistry, audacious effrontery, seductive pleasure, or importunate 
passion. 

Superficial education is an education to daily and dehberate false- 
hood. It is all pretence, and no reality, on the part of teacher and 
taught; each professing loudly to do, what each is conscious he is 
not accomplishing; so that the whole of the student's Hfe, from year 
to year, is an habitual falsehood, a hving lie; till truth and honor, 
religion, friendship, all that is most sacred in the relations and sensi- 
bilites of human life, degenerate into a sham. Hence an age of 
superficial knowledge, is necessarily an age of pretenders, quacks, 
hollow insincerity, frivolous scepticism, heartless formality; without 
depth, intensity, earnestness, heroism, faith. Tlie most valuable 
contribution which could now be made to intellectual science, would 
be perhaps a treatise at once comprehensive and minute, keenly 
analytic, surgically bold, sparing neither probe nor scalpel; but right 
through nerve and tendon, artery and vein, joint, ligament and cap- 
sule, through gland and duct, secretory and excretory, proceeding 
to lay open the whole morbid anatomy of this painful and porten- 
tious subject; tracing the mutual relation, the intimate connexion, 
and reciprocal influence of our intellectual and moral powers, show^- 
ing how truth and holiness are the only tonic and antiseptic to the 
understanding; how the sickly circulation of a diseased intellect 
flows through and enervates all the moral faculties, and the im- 
pure atmosphere of moral pollution, at once darkens and distorts 
the intellectual vision; how language, thought and feeling act and 
react reciprocally, each upon other; the vague and indefinite moral 
conception of an ill-regulated understanding, is embodied in lan- 
guage still more indistinct and vague; and at each successive trans- 
mission from mind to mind, becomes more shadowy still, the vague 
expression barely suggesting the feeble thought, the attenuated 
thought, arousing only the faint echo of a lost emotion; till at last 
both fade into dim impalpability, then vanish altogether out of sight. 
Thus the whole of human life becomes an interchange of senti- 
ments, in which few mean what they say; fewer still say precisely 
what they mean; and yet fewer still seriously inquire the true import of 
what they either think or say. The vague idea produces the vague 
word, the union of both a double ambiguity; half conscious insin- 



25 

cerity lies veiled beneath the convenient equivoque. The broad, 
bold boundaries that once divided right from wrong, candor from 
insincerity, manful honor from disingenuous policy, are gradually 
effaced; and on the doubtful territory that lies between them, con- 
science slumbers amidst the sleepy indistinctness of words that sug- 
gest no definite idea to the mind, and arouse no distinct emotion 
in the heart. Perhaps the briefest and surest recipe to make a sorry 
villain, at once a showy impostor and a shallow dupe, is to give him 
a superficial college education. Better learn to make shoes, well and 
truly, better for the intellect and the heart, better for himself and for 
others, than to mis-learn the whole circle of knowledge, classical, 
mathematical, philosophical. The one is honest work, is doing 
something; the other is all pretence, dishonesty — what our German 
friends expressively denominate an "Unding." 

These remarks have already been extended to such a length that 
I must hasten to a close, and content myself with hints rather than 
developments, in the remaining portion of this address. Where edu- 
cation, in its earlier stages, has been accurate and thorough, it be- 
comes easily, almost spontaneously, '''■Various and comprehensive^ 
Each new idea really acquired, bears almost infinite relations to 
other truths; and progress in knowledge is not measured by the 
number of our separate acquisitions, but by the multitude of those 
innumerable relations which they bear to all our present and all our 
future acquirements. The amount of our knowledge then is not the 
sum of all these acquisitions, but this sum multipHed by all their 
concievable relations to each other. And the facility of future ac- 
quisitions is increased, not only by the increased activity or vigor of 
mind resulting from healthful nutriment and exercise, but by the ra- 
pidity and the number of all those various suggestions that spon- 
taneously arise, in view of these relations, whether of direct resem- 
blance or remoter analogy, and which expanding as they rise, often 
seem more like the recurrence of truths well known before, than the 
acquisition of new ideas. Those prodigies of learning in the foreign 
universities, are not at last so prodigious as our ignorance and won- 
der would often lead us to imagine. The apparent miracle is at 
least the result of laws perfectly recognised, and in complete opera- 
tion among ourselves. Their stupendous acquisitions are due 
to the accuracy of their early education. The elementary ideas in 
every department of knowledge, are few and extremely simple; and 
4 



26 

all the rest is the spontaneous development or the varied combina- 
tion and application of the same. How few are the letters of the 
alphabet? Yet all the words of the most copious language, nay all 
the possible syllables which the wildest imagination, in the very 
wantonness of inventive activity, could conceive, would be but the 
varied combination of these elementary sounds. A few great prin- 
ciples pervade all human speech — a few striking peculiarities char- 
acterize the leading languages of the globe. He who has really 
comprehended those general principles, has the key to all hunian 
language. He who has mastered a few leading languages, is 
already virtually the possessor of all the correlated tongues. Addi- 
tional illustration might be drawn from every department of human 
knowledge. How few and how simple are the elementary truths of 
Political Economy! And yet so important and multitudinous are 
their applications, that the ablest discussions which command the 
applause of senates, and the admiring gaze of crowds, are after all, only 
the felicitous exposition of these fundamental principles. And what 
is the whole art of Rhetoric, or Criticism, but the judicious applica- 
tion of those laws which regulate the succession of thoughts, and emo- 
tions, in the mind of man, and constitute the simplest elements of 
Intellectual Science. 

Such is the intimate connexion, between the elementary principles 
of every science, and its most remote results. There is a similar con- 
nexion, equally intimate, and far more extensive; a sublime and uni- 
versal harmony; a fundamental unity, indeed, of all the various 
sciences, by which each becomes to each, the source of reciprocal 
illustration; and he who would thoroughly master one, must have a 
at least a general acquaintance with them all. The objects with 
which they are severally conversant, are different indeed, but the 
intelligent subject is the same. And as science is itself a phenome- 
non not of matter, but of mind, so all the laws which regulate our 
inquiries in each, are essentially the same; the laws of the one ob- 
serving, comparing, inquiring mind. And when we remember too 
that the objects of every science, whether they belong to the domain 
of matter or of mind, bear to each other a similar relation; are not 
isolated facts, but parts of one comprehensive system; the product of 
one Supreme Creative Intelligence — we need not be surprised that 
a new discovery in one, should cast additional illustration over all 
the rest; that the chemistry of inanimate matter, should cast a light 



27 

upon the physiology of human beings — tlie physiology of material 
organs, upon the laws of the immaterial spirit — the laws of the 
inquiring mind, over every department of physical investigation — 
that the study of man's individual nature, should throw light upon 
his social relations — that the principles of national prosperity, should 
be identical with those of individual welfare — that the Political, 
Economical, Intellectual and Moral Interests of Society, should be 
inseparably blended, and a knowledge of each essential to the tho- 
rough comprehension of either — that Astronomy and Chemistry 
should combine to guide our commerce over the sea, and commerce 
yield wealth and comfort to our families; and thus each daily enjoy- 
ment of the table, and the wardrobe, should be the combined result 
of the most refined experiments in Chemistry, the most abstruse 
demonstrations in Mathematics, the most unwearied observations in 
Astronomy, and the loftiest speculations of philosophical genius. 

But if this cotemporaneous prosecution of all the sciences, be ne- 
cessary to the perfection of each, and to the advancement of human 
society, it is still more essential to the symmetrical development of 
the individual mind, and of course to every institution whose three- 
fold object is, the advancement of human knowledge, the promotion 
of the general welfare, and the cultivation of the individual under- 
standing. Were it even possible to promote the two former objects, 
by exclusive devotion to a single science, it were still a great defect 
in general education. Were it necessary, it must be considered a 
sad necessity — the sacrifice of individual happiness to the public 
good. The excessive subdivision of labor in every department of 
effort, physical and intellectual, has certainly increased the rapidity 
and accuracy of all the processes, and diminished the cost of the re- 
sulting product. Yet who would desire to be himself the man, who 
should spend all his days in rounding the head, or shaping the point 
of a pin, that a lady's boudoir might be more cheaply furnished? 

The body has a variety of organs, the mind a similar variety of 
susceptibilities and powers; and by the wise arrangements of that In- 
finite Benevolence, which has so harmoniously adapted man to his 
condition, and the universe of matter to the universe of mind; abun- 
dant provision has been made, for the healthful equilibrium of both; 
and a valuable lesson taught, regarding the education of either, by 
that astonishing variety of objects presented to us in the constitution 
of nature, and the corresponding variety of pursmts, responsibilities 



28 

and duties in the organization of human society. All human science 
is the study of the works of God, or of the capabilities, relations and 
duties of man. The variety of these studies, therefore, is precisely 
commensurate with the variety of the works of God, and the' corres- 
ponding variety in the faculties of man. In contending therefore 
that education should be various and comprehensive, we only follow 
the guidance of nature, and the will of God. To stimulate a single 
organ or a single faculty into precocious growth, or disproportioned 
activity, would be to thwart the design of nature, and destroy the 
equilibrium of the system. You might enlarge its volume, and in- 
crease its power, but the vital energy concentrated there, is with- 
drawn from the other functions of the physical or intellectual man; and 
while these are weakened, the throbbing circulation diverted from its 
natural channels, excites at first a feverish activity, and ultimately, 
organic derang.ement. All disproportioned activity of body or of 
mind, is incipient disease. All fixedness of idea, professional, scien- 
tific or moral, is monomania. In the free play of all the faculties 
and affections; in the calm equipose of all the powers, is health, hap- 
pinesss, and much of merely human virtue. 

Especially for the educated youth of the Nation, who are to guide 
its future destinies; to superintend all its interests, Political, Agricul- 
tural, Commercial, Intellectual, Moral and Social; to solve those 
stupendous questions, which the progress of human society is contin- 
ually pressing upon us with increasing rapidity and ever deeper 
earnestness and darker doubt; to meet the new emergencies for 
which History has no parallel, and Legislation no precedent; for 
them it is indispensably necessary, that every faculty should be ex- 
panded, by a large, bold, liberal, comprehensive survey of all the 
principal departments of human knowledge, not as a substitute but 
as a stimulus and guide to the maturer investigations of other years. 

To the views thus briefly advanced, it has often been objected, 
"that the proposed variety and extent of knowledge, necessarily sup- 
poses a corresponding superficiahty and inaccuracy of acquirement." 
The reply is obvious and conclusive. The objectors overlook two 
important principles, and contradict the whole history of human 
knowledge. First — The elementary principles of all knowledge are few 
and extremely simple, and when once really acquired, spontaneously 
expand into their remotest consequences. Secondly — The progress 
of human knowledge necessarily diminishes the number, increases 



29 

the simplicity, and thus facilitates the acquisition of these elementary- 
truths and processes, grouping a multitude of isolated facts under a 
general principle, and merging a variety of individual solutions into 
some higher and more comprehensive formula. The fact and its 
explanation, allow me to give in the language of one, the accuracy 
of whose knowledge was only equalled by its extent and variety, 
and by the boldness of his own original speculations* "In the last 
century," writes Condorcet, "a few years of study were sufficient for 
comprehending all that Archimides and Hipparchus knew, and at 
present, two years employed under an able teacher, carry the student 
beyond those conclusions which limited the inquiries of Leibnitz 
and of Newton. Let any person reflect on these facts; let him ob- 
serve how at each epoch genius outstrips the present age, and is over- 
taken by mediocrity in the next; he will see that nature has furnished 
us with the means of abridging and facihtating our intellectual labors, 
and there is no reason for apprehending that such simplifications can 
ever have an end. He will perceive that at the moment when a mul- 
titude of particular solutions and of insulated facts begin to distract 
the attention and to overcharge the memory, the former gradually 
lose themselves in one general method, and the latter unite in one 
general law; and that these generalizations continually succeeding ' ■:^j| 

one to another, like the successive multiplications of a number by '^ 

itself, have no other limit than that infinity, which the human facul- 
ties are unable to comprehend." 



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